APP | Dawn.com BEIJING: Assistant Foreign Minister of China, Liu Jianchao said Monday that China strongly supports improvement in Pakistan-India relations, and that is ready to help resolve outstanding issues through dialogue between the two countries. “We strongly support improvement in relations between Pakistan and India. We appreciate Pakistan’s efforts for normalisation,” he said. The comments from the Chinese foreign ministry follow a recent spike in tensions and deadly clashes along the…
Posts published in November 2014
François de La Rochefoucauld famously said that hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. The quip nicely sums up Chinese supreme leader Xi Jinping ’s legal reforms. The Chinese Communist Party is trumpeting the Oct. 23 decision of the Fourth Plenum of the 18th Central Committee as a major advance in the rule of law. Not quite. From the humblest policeman to the Supreme Court, the legal apparatus will continue to serve…
Two Chinese officials who bought corpses off grave robbers in an attempt to meet controversial central government cremation quotas have been arrested. The two Chinese officials from Guangdong province bought the bodies off a grave robber, identified only by his surname Zhong, who is believed to have stolen more than 20 bodies from local villages before transporting them on the back of a motorbike to sell. In recent years the Chinese government has…
MUZAFFARABAD: Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Prime Minister Chaudhry Abdul Majeed returned to the seat of his government late on Sunday after almost a month, in what has been the longest absence of the chief executive from the state capital. However, he will not be here for too long, as he is again schedule to fly to the United Kingdom on November 6 to ‘supervise’ arrangements for a public meeting of PPP chairperson…
By Shabbir Mir in The Express Tribune, November 3rd, 2014. GILGIT: Shia members of the Masajid Board, who quit earlier this week, have turned down the Gilgit-Baltistan government’s request to withdraw their resignations, saying they want their suggestions implemented first. Ten of the 20-member body of the board resigned earlier this week, complaining their suggestions to maintain sectarian harmony were overlooked by the government. “On Saturday we had a meeting with Chief Minister…
MUZAFFARABAD: People poured onto the streets of Forward Kahuta, the headquarters of the disadvantaged Haveli district of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), on Saturday to protest against the alleged delay and discrimination in preparation of lists of the people affected by the flash floods and torrential rains in their area for compensation. The demonstration was held on the call of Chaudhry Mohammad Aziz, senior vice president of opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in AJK,…
By Muhammad Sadaqat in The Express Tribune, November 1st, 2014. KOHISTAN: Elders from Kohistan and Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) have agreed to authorise a jirga from Kohistan to resolve a long-standing land dispute between tribes from both regions. Former MNA Mehboobullah Jan told The Express Tribune he would head the 12-member jirga which has the support of G-B’s elders. According to Jan, the elders will begin meeting the warring sides—Kohistan’s Harban Bhasha tribe and G-B’s Thordas…
Hong Kong’s pro-democracy sit-ins have lasted more than a month, a milestone that protesters marked Tuesday with an 87-second moment of silence to recall the 87 volleys of tear gas fired by police on Sept. 28. But the real news is that Beijing’s united front has begun to crack. First tycoon James Tien —leader of the pro-Beijing Liberal Party and former chairman of the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce—called for the resignation of Hong…